9,000 salary complaints, 16,000 injured workers in 2016

In 2016, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) received about 9,000 complaints from workers over salaries. These complaints related to about 4,500 employers. This was reported in the Straits Times, 6 Feb 2017, in a story reporting on questions and answers from a parliamentary sitting.

Manpower minister Lim Swee Say also mentioned that in the last three years, 158 employers were taken to court for not paying salaries and all were convicted. No figure was given for prosecutions in 2016 alone.

About 95 per cent of the [9,000] cases were resolved by the ministry and the Labour Court, Mr Lim said.

Of the 208 salary claims that were not resolved last year, 199 of them involved employers who had either ceased operating or were about to close their businesses due to financial difficulties.

In these cases, the workers had a slim chance of recovering payments from their employers, Mr Lim said, adding: “This is not because the employers could just ignore and refuse to pay up, but because they are mostly in deep financial difficulties.”

— Straits Times, 6 Feb 2017, Parliament: 158 employers convicted in the last three years for not paying workers, Link.

As for work injury compensation, the newspaper reported the minister to have revealed that there were 16,000 injured workers in 2016. Of these, only five did not receive their compensation as their employers did not insure them. Four were foreigners and one was a Singaporean. The employers in these five cases are being prosecuted, the minister said.

TWC2 is an organization that is dedicated to assisting low-wage migrant workers when they are in difficulty. We are motivated by a sense of fairness and humanity, though our caseload often exceeds our means.